opera Ruthie. Enjoy it.'
He turned to Mara and spoke in a soft voice. 'Look, I still love you. I know it's crazy to say it now. But if you ever come to where you're fed up with this shit, you can call me. I'll come running.'
Without waiting for an answer he turned on his heel, strode through the darkened rooms and out of the house.
His temples were throbbing so much and his eyes so full of tears that he did not see the shadowy figure that moved quickly behind a corner of the house as he passed.
The newcomer waited until he heard Mike's car pull away from the curb some distance from the house and then moved up to the window Mike had first peered into.
Chapter 8
The newcomer who narrowly missed Mike was Joe Mills. Ever since he had caught Mara Blake and Ruth Peter making love during the faculty picnic, the idea of using the knowledge in some way to his advantage had never left him. At first he thought he would simply use it to ask Ruth to put through a request for a higher raise because he was undertaking special duties. Then he thought of asking her to back him downtown at the Board of Education for the chairmanship of a new school that would open soon.
Normally he would not have much of a chance. He had not had enough experience in the Los Angeles area. But he knew that Ruth Peter was in solid with the appointments chief, a prissy little bitch who was hard to get dose to. But Ruth had a lot of clout with her since they had gone to school together. Yes, that was a better idea, he told himself. But why not also get a little piece of Mara Blake's ass while he was at it. His memory of her exquisite body gave him a healthy erection when he thought of it. At fifty-three, Joe Mills did not get too many chances to make love to girls of Mara's age or beauty. Since his divorce from his second wife, he had had to resort to middle-aged widows he picked up at dances for older singles. Occasionally at a faculty party he was able to navigate an older married teacher into a convenient bedroom.
But these opportunities were not only rare in turning up, they did not satisfy him. During the Korean war he had taught school briefly in a school for American kids in Seoul, children of American troops stationed there. It was a boom time for Joe Mills. The town was full of lovely Korean girls and he had balled many of them. That had lasted two years and then he had taken a job in the States in Missouri. Hating the middle western climate, he had drifted back to Europe where he married another American schoolteacher. They had got divorced after she came home one day and found pubic hairs in his bidet. His wife, a conservative New Englander, had confronted him with proof that he was screwing their maid in Munich and that was it.
She had left and he had come home to scrounge a job in Los Angeles through friends. But his life was a sterile one. He lived in a small apartment in a swimming pool complex filled with youngsters who treated him like an old man. It hurt him deeply. True, he was almost completely bald and he had a heavy paunch, but he could still compete in the sack with any of the younger neighbors. He just never got the chance. Occasionally he got himself invited to parties in the building where there were plenty of girls and liquor and as the ranks of guests thinned out, he tried to latch on to some girl for the evening. It had never worked. A few times he managed to get a girl to his place next door for a nightcap or took the girl home to her place.
When he got in the door, it was hopeless. He would paw at the girls, try to kiss them, all to no avail. If they were kind they would simply tell him they were too tired. But many of them just laughed at him for being a dirty old man. That epithet was what hurt most. One night he had taken home a very pretty blonde from UCLA to show her some pre-Columbian relics he collected. The girl, an anthropology major, had readily agreed to come.
When he got there and gave her a drink, he started fooling around, first kissing her neck and then putting a hand cautiously on her right breast. The girl, barely twenty, had pretended a fly had landed on her and gave him no heed. Irritated, he had taken his hand away and boldly put up between the girl's smooth warm thighs. She had fought and he had pinned her down with his superior weight. He had managed to get his forefinger in her pussy when suddenly he heard her sneer.
'Christ, if I'd known you were a dirty old man I'd have never come in here. Get away from me.'
He had persisted nevertheless and disgustedly she had allowed him to poke his finger into her vagina until he was on fire but she refused to lay for him and said she would scream if he tried to force her, even accuse him of rape. Terrified of losing his job at the school, he had stopped. But the hurt had rankled deeply.
A few weeks later, trying again, he wormed his way into the party giver's bedroom after everyone had left. The hostess, half crocked, had taken a shower and then put herself naked between the sheets, assuming her guests had already left. To her astonishment Joe Mills came in just as she was about to put out the light. She realized that her breasts could be seen and hastily covered herself up to the neck.
'What's up, Joe?' she asked nervously. 'I thought everybody left. I didn't see you in there.'
He blushed. 'I was in your kitchen behind the washing machine.'
Her eyes widened. 'And why did you do that? What were you doing, playing hide and seek?'
He looked at the beautifully shaped dark-eyed girl, whose superb proportions were clearly outlined by the thin sheet over them. What the hell could he tell her, he thought. That he wanted to fuck her? He could not get the words out. Instead he had lowered his pants and stepped out of them before she could say anything.
She stared at his thick hairy legs and his under shorts and frowned. 'Get the hell out of here Joe.'
He took his shorts off and got into bed, still not saying anything, stripped the sheet away from her body and started to suck her breasts. His hand went down to her pussy.
'I don't believe this,' she said in amazement. 'You must be crazy.'
He ignored her, letting his mouth slobber greedily over her breasts and then down to her navel, until she began to pummel his back with her angry fists.
'Get off of me, you fat sick old man,' she yelled. 'Get your ugly fat carcass off me or I'll call the cops right now, you hear me, you fat bastard.'
'Please Lenore,' he pleaded. 'All I want to do is make love to you. I was watching you during the party. You were smiling at me and we had a great talk together. I thought you wouldn't mind.'
'Wouldn't mind?' she laughed. 'Wouldn't mind? I wouldn't go to bed with you if you were the only male in town. Get the hell off me.'
'But you acted like you liked me…' he began.
'Because I had you here as a guest,' she retorted.
'And the only reason I let you come is because Ruth Jennings felt sorry for you and you let her use your car. I told her you were too old and that I couldn't stand your personality. Now I know why.'
In an effort to drawn out her words, the paunchy English teacher began to lower his mouth to her navel and then began to suck her pussy. Far a moment the rich pungent aromas of her vagina and the cologne she had sprayed it with excited him so much that he heard nothing. He kept sucking her hairy slit, deaf to her pleas, reveling in the delight of having his mouth an a young girl's vulva. He held her down severely with all his strength and finally she had lain there limp, her only sound a low moan of disgust with him.
The lapping of her pussy had made him very excited sexually and he had tried to spread her legs so he could mount her. But that alerted her again. Seizing a heavy ashtray beside her bed, she had raised it and threatened to bash his skull with it.
'Get off me and get out of here or I'll crack your skull,' she warned. 'If you go now I won't say anything. Get out.'
He stood on his knees, his pudgy-looking erect penis dangling foolishly in front of him.
'Just let me put it in your pussy for a minute.' he begged. 'Just a minute, that is all.'
She shook her head, 'You disgust me. Just get the hell out. I'll put what you did down to the fact that you were smashed and acted like a lunatic. But I don't want you here any longer.'
He wet his lips as he stared at Lenore's vulva, wet by his tongue and saliva. He had a terrible need to climax. The sight of her pussy was driving him up the wall.
'Can I at least do it by putting it in your mouth,' he begged, 'It wouldn't take long. Really it wouldn't. I promise you. Just a minute and I'll come.'
She looked at him as if he were same insect, a look that seemed to penetrate right through him.
